12 quotes that will encourage you to follow your passion

Finding your passion is one thing, following it is another. Be inspired to take action by these 12 quotes from leaders and creatives who pushed beyond their fears to follow work that made them come alive.

“I’ve been absolutely terrified every moment of my life and I’ve never let it keep me from doing a single thing that I wanted to do.” — Georgia O’Keefe

“Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there’s love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.” —Ella Fitzgerald

“Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.” —Theodore Roosevelt

“What’s money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.” —Bob Dylan

“Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs.” —Farrah Gray

“I would rather die of passion than of boredom.” —Vincent van Gogh

“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.” —Mark Twain

“There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.” —Nelson Mandela

“The one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can.” —Neil Gaiman

“It’s your place in the world; it’s your life. Go on and do all you can with it, and make it the life you want to live.” —Mae Jemison

Have a quote that encourages you to follow your passion? Share it in the comments.

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Photo Credit: Ruslan Grumble, Shutterstock

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14 Comments

Oooh Aaron! These quotes are coming at the right time. I feel incredibly inspired after reading them. Thank you for posting this and to quote another commenter from your 20 quotes article from September, “keep it going”!

It seems rather unlikely that Confucius would ever say such a thing as attributed to him above. Good sentiment for us in this time of relative luxury, but it would have been an out-of-place-and-time idea to choose a job you love in China in the time Confucius lived.

I don’t think Confucius lived or thought in pace with the times and place he lived; he introduced many new ideas about how to live life that are followed to this day, and not just in China. And he lived his life in self imposed exile to work as he “loved” as opposed to as tradition dictated.